Annual Scientific Meeting

APS Wraps Up Successful Annual Scientific Meeting in New Orleans

More than 1,200 attendees gathered for the APS 32nd Annual Scientific Meeting May 8–11 in New Orleans, LA. The Crescent City welcomed professionals of varied experience levels to gather for the exchange of current information about the diagnosis, treatment, and management of acute pain, chronic cancer and noncancer pain, and recurrent pain. Media, attendees, and exhibitors also took their conversations about the annual meeting and the management of pain online, leaving a significant mark on social media platform Twitter by using the hashtag #ASM2013.

In addition to the impressive gathering of attendees, 69 exhibitors helped fill the 98-booth exhibit hall. The educational program included 30 symposia; a keynote address from Story Landis, PhD; 3 plenary lectures; and 3 workshops. Attendees also had the opportunity to attend featured sessions, such as the Global Year Against Pain Lecture on the topic of Chronic Visceral Pain and the Kerr and Fordyce Award Lectures.

Excellence in the field was recognized during the annual President’s Reception when APS presented the 2013 award winners, including recipients of the Clinical Centers of Excellence in Pain Management Awards. More than 400 posters provided attendees a variety of educational opportunities.

New this year, attendees of the 32nd Annual Scientific Meeting were also offered a special learning opportunity on REMS for Extended-Release, Long-Acting Opioids. Once again, the Pain Sensations provided music and entertainment at Bourbon Heat on Thursday night.

Professionals in varied areas of pain research and treatment are invited to join experts in the industry at next year’s APS Annual Scientific Meeting in Tampa, FL, April 30–May 3. The Call for Symposia is currently open for proposals that include perspectives from physicians, nurses, physical therapists, psychologists, basic scientists, pharmacists, dentists, etc.

ASM Attendees, Receive Your CE Credit

APS encourages all meeting attendees to complete the evaluation regardless of whether credit is being sought. Certificates of continuing education credit will be issued upon completion of the online meeting evaluation form. Please click here to access the meeting evaluation.

You will need to enter your username (which can be found on the second ticket of your name badge) and your password. If you are not a member of APS, did not register online for the annual meeting, or otherwise have not established a username and password, you will need to do so to access your evaluation form. Please contact APS Member Services at 847.375.4715 to activate your online profile.

If you attended the “Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS) for Extended-Release and Long-Acting Opioids: Achieving Safe Use While Improving Patient Care” course on Saturday, May 11, you will have access to the evaluation form for the course upon logging into the meeting evaluation system.

ASM Hosts Special REMS Session

More than 200 pain specialists and primary care clinicians from both the APS Annual Scientific Meeting and the New Orleans area gathered for a opioid REMS session on the closing day of this year’s meeting. The objective was to address the public health crisis surrounding the use, abuse, diversion, and overdosing associated with extended release/long-acting (ER/LA) opioids.

Faculty included representatives from APS (Charles Argoff, Renee Manworren, and Steve Stanos), the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners (Brett Snodgrass), and the California Academy of Family Physicians (Dave Bazzo). The course was well received and engaged the audience with diverse and effective presentations, case studies, a comprehensive review of ER/LA products, question-and-answer opportunities, and an assessment aimed at helping attendees gauge their knowledge and application.

While APS took the lead on this special course, the society is a member of The Collaborative for REMS Education (CO*RE), a multidisciplinary collaboration of 10 partners and three cooperating organizations who together have designed a core curriculum based on needs assessment, practice gaps, clinical competencies, and learner self-assessment with shared tools, resources, and outcomes to meet the requirements of the FDA REMS blueprint to provide effective prescriber focused education on the safe and effective prescribing of ER/LA opioids to safely manage pain.

Congratulations to the 2013 Clinical Centers of Excellence in Pain Management Award Recipients

APS recently presented the Clinical Centers of Excellence (CCOE) in Pain Management Awards at the Annual Scientific Meeting in New Orleans. Award recipients are U.S.-based, interdisciplinary healthcare teams who are recognized as providing the most distinguished, comprehensive pain care. The CCOE Awards program has two categories of awardees. University-based programs are those that, in addition to providing superior clinical care, are exemplars of academic excellence with active research, educational, and administrative programs. Community-based programs are those that provide superior clinical care in a free-standing clinic, a community hospital, or an integrated healthcare system. In addition to meeting other award criteria, CCOE award recipients must demonstrate how their care is patient centered, evidence based, and safe; provides appropriate access to multidisciplinary and multimodal care; employs various therapeutic modalities; acts as a local champion to improve pain management in systems of care; demonstrates innovation and serves as a model of excellence; and shows a commitment to advancing scientific knowledge related to pain. Congratulations to the 2013 recipients.

University-Based Program
Neuromedicine Pain Management Center, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry
Rochester, NY

Community-Based Program
Department of Pain Medicine, Palliative Care, and Integrative Medicine, Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota
St. Paul, MN
Minneapolis, MN

Education

Call for 2014 Symposia

APS will hold its 33rd Annual Scientific Meeting April 30–May 3, 2014, in Tampa, FL. The APS Scientific Program Committee invites the submission of proposals for symposia for presentation during the Tampa meeting.

The Scientific Program Committee requests that all proposals be multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary and therefore include speakers representing varied areas of pain research and treatment. The committee will be looking for proposals that include perspectives from physicians, nurses, physical therapists, psychologists, basic scientists, pharmacists, dentists, etc. Moderators should seek participation from a varied group of faculty (the maximum number of participants per proposal is 1 moderator and up to 3 additional speakers), and several disciplines and facilities/institutions should be represented on each proposal. Translational proposals that include both basic and clinical science are encouraged.

Submission
The submission system will remain open May 7–July 15, 2013. The system will close at 11:59 pm PST on July 15, and additional submissions will not be accepted.

Notification
Moderators and faculty will be notified in October 2013 regarding selection of their proposals. All presenters will receive complimentary conference registration. Other terms of participation will be communicated to speakers upon acceptance of the proposal.

Please visit the Call for Symposia page on the APS website for detailed instructions and a link to the submission forms.

8th Annual NIH Pain Consortium Symposium on "Integrated Self-Management Strategies for Chronic Pain"

The 8th Annual National Institutes of Health (NIH) Pain Consortium Symposium on Advances in Pain Research, “Integrated Self-Management Strategies for Chronic Pain,” will be held May 29–30 in Bethesda, MD. Topics will include self-management strategies in community healthcare settings, tailored self-management strategies for patients and caregivers, and predictors and indicators of outcomes in integrated self-management strategies. A poster session will include a broad selection of current pain research findings presented by young investigators. Members of the extramural scientific community, the NIH scientific community, healthcare providers, and the public are invited to attend or view the live videocast. The event will be hosted by the NIH Pain Consortium Annual Symposium organizing committee.

For more information, registration, and instructions on how to view the live videocast, visit the symposium website.

Call for Applications for Mayday Pain & Society Fellowship: A Media and Policy Initiative

The Mayday Fund, a New York City-based foundation dedicated to alleviating the incidence, degree, and consequence of human physical pain, is interested in providing new leaders in the pain field with tools that will enable them to reach the broader public.

In 2004, Mayday established the Mayday Pain & Society Fellowship: A Media and Policy Initiative, a fellowship program to train physicians; nurses; pharmacists; social workers; basic, translational, and clinical scientists; policy experts; and legal scholars in the pain management community to go beyond their own professional pursuits to become leaders and advocates for change in the pain field in the United States and Canada. The fellowship seeks those applicants who have the capacity, time, and passion to become active advocates in the field and who foresee significant impact from their efforts to improve the lives of people in pain.

The Mayday Pain & Society Fellowship began accepting applications on Friday, March 15. The deadline for applying for the 2013 program is Monday, July 1. You must submit the following:

1. Your completed application
   
2. A letter approving your participation in the program from your immediate supervisor or chairperson. The letter should include confirmation that you can devote 10% of your time to the fellowship and provide supporting background about your candidacy for the Mayday Pain & Society Fellowship.

Finalists will be involved in a phone interview with members of the Mayday Fellowship Advisory Committee. The committee will select fellows by late August 2013. Chosen fellows will be required to participate in training October 20–23.

For questions about the Mayday fellowship program, please visit the FAQ page. The Mayday fellows advocate on behalf of themselves and not on behalf of The Mayday Fund.

Members

Member Spotlight

S. Stevens Negus, PhD
Professor, Department Pharmacology and Toxicology
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, VA

How has membership in APS been of value to you and your professional development?
APS has been an important venue for me both to stay apprised of developments in pain research and to disseminate the findings of my own research. The Journal of Pain and editorial staff have been especially important to me..

What is your area of specialty?
My focus for the last few years has been on National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke- and National Institute of Drug Abuse-funded preclinical research to examine the expression, neurobiology, and treatment of pain-related behavioral depression. We have been especially interested in using a procedure known as intracranial self-stimulation (or ICSS) to study the prodepressant effects of pain. In this procedure, rats or mice are trained to press a lever for pulses of brain stimulation delivered via microelectrodes implanted in brain reward pathways. This procedure has a long history of use to study motivational effects of abused drugs. We have adapted the procedure to study effects of pain and analgesic drugs. Specifically, pain states can depress lever pressing for brain stimulation reward, and analgesic drugs can block this pain-related depression of behavior. Our working hypothesis has been that pharmacologic blockade of pain-related depression is functionally related to effects of analgesics on the affective components of pain.

What initially sparked your interest in working in your field? Briefly describe your career path.
I have worked on the pharmacology of analgesic drugs for more than 25 years. Early in my career, I relied on traditional preclinical behavioral assays that measured drug effects on withdrawal responses elicited by noxious stimuli (e.g., tail or paw withdrawal from noxious thermal stimuli). However, during my service as chairman of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School, I learned that veterinarians were not relying on these same behaviors for their assessments of pain in laboratory animals. Rather, their assessments were based largely on evidence for depression of various behaviors, including locomotor activity, feeding, social interaction, and grooming. I subsequently learned that pain-related measures of depression and functional impairment also play a key role in pain diagnosis in human medicine. Given this focus on pain-related depression in the diagnosis of pain in veterinary and clinical medicine, I then began to explore strategies for measuring pain-related behavioral depression in my research. We have now developed new behavioral assays that are providing entirely new insights into both pain mechanisms and analgesic drug development.

What has been a highlight of your work? Perhaps you and your staff are proud of a certain project or accomplishment.
As noted above, we have developed new assays of pain-related behavioral depression, and our goal now is to refine and apply these assays to research on the neurobiology and treatment of the affective dimensions of pain.

Is there a particular challenge that you've either overcome or hope to address soon?
A major focus of our current research is on neurobiological mechanisms of pain-related behavioral depression. We have found that pain can depress not only certain types of behavior, but also the activity of a key brain reward pathway called the mesolimbic dopamine system. We are now investigating mechanisms that may contribute to pain-related depression of this system. Our working hypothesis is that pain may depress this system by mechanisms that could be selectively targeted without altering function of this system in the absence of pain.

Who is your favorite role model and why?
My role models are explorers, like Meriwether Lewis and William Clark of the 1804–1806 Lewis and Clark Expedition into the land acquired through the Louisiana Purchase. I think of science as a process that guides our exploration of our world.

Member Benefit

APS Career Center
The APS Career Center provides members with a resource for and connections to exciting new careers related to pain. With more than 2,000 highly skilled and trained members specializing in pain, APS is the premier source to reach professionals within this specialized field.

• Free profile posting: Post your professional profile online today.
  
• View all jobs: Browse all available positions
  
• Job search: Refine your job search using specific criteria
  
• My account: Save up to 100 jobs in your account to view and apply for later.
  
• Help/FAQs

If you have any questions about this or other benefits of APS membership, contact member services at 847.375.4715 or info@americanpainsociety.org.

APS Members-Only Access Outage

Due to a software upgrade, the members-only section of the website, the online store, and member accounts will be unavailable May 29–30. This upgrade will not interfere with the public pages of the APS website. We apologize for this inconvenience. Should you have any questions, please contact APS Member Services at 847.375.4715.

Summaries

The Journal of Pain Highlights

The following highlights summarize selected articles from May 2013 (Volume 14, Number 5).

Predictors of Acute Postsurgical Pain and Anxiety Following Primary Total Hip and Knee Arthroplasty
Patricia R. Pinto, Teresa McIntyre, Ramon Ferrero, Armando Almeida and Vera Araujo-Soares; University of Minho, Braga, Portugal; Newcastle University, United Kingdom; and University of Houston, Texas

The aging of the U.S. population will lead to a significant rise in knee and hip osteoarthritis prevalence and a subsequent increase in surgical interventions, such as total knee arthroplasty (TKA) and total hip arthroplasty (THA). These are painful surgeries, but despite advances in pain research and development of new pain management guidelines and standards for treatment, postsurgical pain is undermanaged. This Portuguese study examined the impact of psychological factors on acute postsurgical pain after TKA and THA procedures. The research objective was to examine the independent and joint contributions of demographic, clinical and psychological variables as predictors of acute postsurgical pain intensity and postsurgical surgical anxiety in patients undergoing TKA and THA.

A sample of 124 patients with osteoarthritis participated in the study. They were assessed 24 hours before surgery and 48 hours afterward.

Results showed there was a significant influence of psychological factors for predicting acute pain and anxiety 48 hours after TKA and THA surgery. Optimism prior to surgery was determined to be the most significant predictor of lower postsurgical pain intensity. Anxiety before surgery was found to be the major predictor of postsurgical anxiety. Psychological variables were rated as more significant for predicting post-surgical pain and anxiety than clinical or demographic factors.

The authors concluded that by identifying at-risk patients, clinicians can implement better post-surgical surveillance and use appropriate psychological interventions.

Changes in Pain Coping, Catastrophizing, and Pain Coping Efficacy after Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in Children and Adolescents with Juvenile Fibromyalgia
Susmita Kashikar-Zuck, Soumiri Sil, Anne M. Lynch-Jordan, Tracy V. Ting, James Peugh, Kenneth N. Schikler, Philip J. Hashkes ,Lesley M. Arnold, Murray Passo, Margaret M. Richards-Mauze, Scott W. Powers and Daniel Lovell; Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, University of Louisville School of Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina, Cleveland Clinic Foundation and Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Jerusalem

Several studies have shown that cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is associated with improved outcomes in various painful pediatric conditions. The goal of this treatment is to help improve daily functioning and reduce emotional distress by training young patients to use active and adaptive coping strategies, along with parental guidance to support behavioral changes.

In a recent clinical study of CBT, the authors found that adolescents with fibromyalgia who received CBT intervention showed strong and clinically significant reductions in functional disability and depression. In this secondary analysis of the trial results, the authors examined the psychological mechanisms underlying the effectiveness of CBT therapy. They hypothesized that adolescents with fibromyalgia who received CBT would show greater improvement in coping skills and coping efficacy and achieve greater reduction in pain catastrophizing than patients who received fibromyalgia education (FE) only. One hundred adolescents with fibromyalgia completed the trial.

Study subjects completed comprehensive clinical and psychological assessments, and they were randomized to either the CBT or FE treatment arm. Patients met individually with a trained doctoral level therapist for eight treatment sessions in which interventions were delivered using standard protocols.

Results showed that CBT led to adoption of significantly improved coping strategies, reduction in pain catastrophizing and increased pain coping efficacy. Poorer coping and higher catastrophizing were linked with depressive symptoms. The authors concluded that the results indicate that CBT leads to significant improvement in pain coping skills, and positive changes can occur rapidly when patients are trained how to cope with pain and maintain their coping strategies over time.

Clinical Journal of Pain Highlights

The following highlights summarize selected articles from the Clinical Journal of Pain (Volume 29, Number 5, May Issue).

Correlation Between Depressive Symptoms and Perioperative Pain: A Prospective Cohort Study of Patients Undergoing Orthopedic Surgeries
Sascha Goebel, Andre Steinert, Christina Vierheilig, and Hermann Faller; Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and University of Wuerzburg Institute of Psychotherapy and Medical Psychology, Wuerzburg, Germany

Many patients who undergo orthopedic surgery report severe pain after their operations. However, the range of both postoperative pain and consumption of pain medication varies considerably between individuals, even after the same surgical procedures.

The aim of this longitudinal study was to (a) clarify the hypothesis that depressive symptoms have a prognostic value for perioperative pain, (b) explore the direction of causal influence of depressive symptoms and perioperative pain, and (c) clarify the impact of possible confounders on the correlation of perioperative pain and depressive symptoms in patients undergoing orthopedic surgery. As a screening tool for depressive symptoms, the German version of the Patient Health Questionnaire depression module was used.

Depressive symptoms and perioperative pain showed significant correlations both cross-sectionally within the same time point and longitudinally across three time points: preoperatively (T1), on the second postoperative day (T2), and on the day of discharge (T3).

Depressive symptoms during T2 predict pain at T3, even after controlling for pain at T2. This finding may suggest that early postoperative pain does not subside or increase in patients with depressed mood after surgery. Preoperative pain, on the other hand, still predicts postoperative depressive mood, even after adjusting for possible confounders. A possible explanation for this link may be that baseline pain triggers depressive coping styles such as catastrophizing, which in turn may lead to follow-up depression.

Perioperative pain therapy should include the treatment of both pain and depressive symptoms to achieve sufficient pain relief.

Establishing an Optimal “Cutoff” Threshold for Diagnostic Lumbar Facet Blocks: A Prospective Correlational Study
Steven Paul Cohen, Scott A. Strassels, Connie Kurihara, Scott R. Griffith, Brandon Goff, Kevin Guthmiller, Hieu T. Hoang, Benny Morlando, and Conner Nguyen; Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine; Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Pain Management Division, Anesthesia Service, Department of Surgery; Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Department of Anesthesiology;University of Texas at Austin Division of Pharmacy Practice; Brooke Army Medical Center Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation; Brooke Army Medical Center Department of Anesthesiology; and Landstuhl Regional Medical Center Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Service Department of Surgery, Landstuhl, Germany

Lumbar zygapophysial (l-z or facet) joint pain represents a clinically burdensome source of chronic axial low back pain, estimated to affect between 10% and 15% of patients. Two of the principal challenges in characterizing this condition are the lack of uniformly reliable treatment and the absence of standardized diagnostic criteria. Whereas radiofrequency (RF) denervation has been found by some systematic reviews to be a reference standard for treatment, others consider the evidence supporting it to be negative or conflicting. The purpose of this prospective study was to delineate the optimal pain relief threshold for selecting patients for lumbar facet denervation after single medial branch blocks (MBB).

There were no significant differences in RF outcomes based on any MBB pain relief cutoff more than 50%. A trend was noted when patients who obtained less than 50% pain relief reported poorer outcomes. No optimal threshold for designating a diagnostic block as positive, or more than 50% pain relief, could be calculated.

Practitioners may conclude that a threshold slightly less than 50% pain relief (perhaps about 43%) could increase the success rate of RF denervation without compromising “sensitivity.” On a related note, they may agree that employing more stringent selection criteria for lumbar facet RF is likely to result in withholding a beneficial procedure from a substantial number of patients. More research should be conducted to determine whether these results might differ based on more functionally weighted outcome measures and if patients who obtain greater degrees of pain relief during diagnostic blocks sustain longer benefit.

PAIN Highlights

The following highlights summarize selected articles from Pain (Volume 154, Number 5, May Issue).

Persistent Pain in Postmastectomy Patients: Comparison of Psychophysical, Medical, Surgical, and Psychosocial Characteristics Between Patients with and Without Pain
Kristin L. Schreiber, Marc O. Martel, Helen Shnol, John R. Shaffer, Carol Greco, Nicole Viray, Lauren N. Taylor, Meghan McLaughlin, Adam Brufsky, Gretchen Ahrendt, Dana Bovbjerg, Robert R. Edwards, and Inna Belfer; University of Pittsburgh Department of Anesthesiology; Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, Boston Department of Anesthesiology; University of Pittsburgh Department of Human Genetics; University of Pittsburgh Department of Psychiatry; University of Pittsburgh Department of Medicine; University of Pittsburgh Department of Surgery; and Brigham & Women’s Hospital Department of Psychiatry

The reported incidence of persistent postmastectomy pain (PPMP) ranges between 25% and 60%. Among patients with breast cancer, PPMP is rated as the most troubling symptom, leading to disability and psychological distress. The condition is notably resistant to treatment.

For this study, researchers selected two patient groups from a larger population (N = 611) of postmastectomy patients who had been previously characterized for pain: 100 with persistent pain and 100 without. The aim of this study was to investigate and characterize important differences in the demographic, medical, psychosocial, and psychophysical profiles of these two groups by gathering their responses to quantitative sensory testing (QST) and to psychosocial questionnaires as well as information about their demographics, surgery, and adjuvant therapies. Patients were evaluated an average of 4 years after mastectomy.

Psychosocial processes including catastrophizing, somatization, depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbance were associated with PPMP. Additionally, several QST measures including pain pressure threshold and pain rating after pinprick mechanical temporal summation were also correlated with PPMP. However, surgical factors such as total mastectomy, axillary dissection, and reconstruction did not correlate with PPMP. Disease- and treatment-related variables including tumor size, stage, and recurrence, as well as exposure to radiation and chemotherapy, also did not correlate with PPMP. Collectively, these findings suggest that psychophysical pain sensitivity as measured by QST as well as psychological profile as measured by psychosocial tools strongly correlate with the development of PPMP regardless of the type of surgical and medical treatment patients receive for their breast cancer.

Younger age was not correlated with PPMP. Patients were exposed to various surgical approaches (ranging from lumpectomy to radical mastectomy) and adjuvant therapies (77% radiation, 76% hormone therapy, 51% chemotherapy), which allowed an investigation of these factors’ contribution to PPMP. Yet a strong association between surgical or treatment-related variables and PPMP was not seen. These findings suggest that psychophysical and psychosocial profile may be more strongly related to PPMP than surgical treatment.

Medical Use, Medical Misuse, and Nonmedical Use of Prescription Opioids: Results from a Longitudinal Study
Sean Esteban McCabe, Brady T. West, and Carol J. Boyd; University of Michigan Institute for Research on Women and Gender, University of Michigan Substance Abuse Research Center, University of Michigan Center for Statistical Consultation and Research, University of Michigan Institute for Social Research Survey Research Center, and University of Michigan School of Nursing

The objective of this study was to examine the prevalence and patterns associated with past-year medical use, medical misuse, and nonmedical use of prescription opioids (NMUPO) among adolescents over a 2-year period and to examine substance abuse, sleeping problems, and physical pain symptoms associated with patterns of medical use, medical misuse, and NMUPO.

A Web-based survey was self-administered by a longitudinal sample of 2050 middle and high school students in 2009 and 2010 (Year 1) and in 2010 and 2011 (Year 2). The study was set in two southeastern Michigan school districts. Main outcome measures were past-year medical use, medical misuse, and NMUPO.

More than one-third of adolescents who reported medical use of prescription opioids in Year 1 continued to report such behavior in Year 2. Medical users and nonusers in Year 1 had notable differences in the prevalence of adverse health behaviors in Year 2; these appear clinically significant, representing several-fold increases in the risk of adverse health behaviors such as NMUPO and substance abuse.

Although the overwhelming majority of adolescents who had been prescribed opioids used their scheduled medications appropriately, there is cause for concern for prescribers because at least 20% reported past-year medical misuse of prescription opioids consisting of using too much, intentionally getting high, or using to increase alcohol or other drug effects. In general, medical misuse of prescription opioids was associated with higher rates of adverse health behaviors.

More than three in every four subjects who reported medical use, medical misuse, or NMUPO in Year 1 experienced physical pain during the 6 months preceding self-evaluation during Year 2. These findings suggest that adolescents with physical pain and sleep problems are more likely to use and misuse opioids. Approximately 76% of nonmedical users of prescription opioids were motivated solely by pain relief; NMUPO solely for pain relief was more prevalent among girls.

These results provide evidence that the prevalence rates for adverse health behaviors are consistently highest among those reporting NMUPO for nonpain relief, although NMUPO for pain relief only was associated with sleeping problems and physical pain symptoms over time.

Research

APS and RAF Announce 2013 Award in Pain Recipients

APS joins the Rita Allen Foundation (RAF) in recognizing the organizations’ collaborative 2013 Award in Pain program awardees:

Rebecca Seal, PhD
University of Pittsburgh
Mechanical Pain Circuits in the Dorsal Horn: A Role for VGLUT3

Reza Sharif Naeini, PhD
McGill University
Role of Parvalbumin Neurons in the Dorsal Horn Pain Circuits

APS and RAF work together in promoting the grant program, reviewing applications, and selecting recipients. Recipients of the award present their research outcomes at a symposium, paper, or poster session at an APS Annual Meeting.

Candidates for the Rita Allen Award in Pain have completed their training and provided persuasive evidence of distinguished achievement or extraordinary promise in basic science research in pain. Preferred candidates are in the early stages of their careers of appointment and at a fully independent faculty level.

The Rita Allen Foundation was established in 1953 and sponsors the Foundation Scholars Program that has supported more than 100 scholars over the past 35 years, many of whom have made important advances in medical research. The 2014 RAF Award in Pain grant cycle will open November 1, 2013. For more information about the RAF Award in Pain, please visit the Rita Allen Foundation Award in Pain page on the APS website.

APS Announces 2013 Future Leaders in Pain Research Grants Program Opens June 3, 2013!

The call for applications for the 2013 Future Leaders in Pain Research Grants program opens June 3, 2013. This year, APS will again award at least two grants in the amount of $20,000 each to pain research proposals demonstrating the greatest merit and potential for success.

The Future Leaders in Pain Research Grants program was established in 2005 to fund pain research projects of doctoral-prepared investigators who have not yet attained National Institutes of Health RO1 level funding. The purpose of this grant is to encourage research in pain that will add to the existing body of knowledge and to allow investigators to develop pilot data that will aid them in securing additional major grant funding for continued pain research.

Application submission is open June 3, 2013, through midnight July 12, 2013.

For more information regarding deadlines, eligibility, topics, and more, please visit Future Leaders in Pain Research Grants on the APS website.

Society

Regional Society Updates

Southern Pain Society
The Southern Pain Society will host its annual conference, Advancing Pain Therapy: Beyond the Basics, September 20–22, 2013 at Harrah’s Hotel in New Orleans, LA. For more information, please see the program booklet.

Greater Philadelphia Pain Society
The Greater Philadelphia Pain Society will be hosting an educational program on Tuesday, May 28, “The Brain, Pain, and Neuroplasticity—Trying to Make Sense of It All in a Biopsychosocial World,” featuring Lorimer Moseley, PhD, professor of Neuroscience and chair in Physiotherapy, The Sansom Institute for Health Research at the University of South Australia. For more information or to register, visit www.gppsupdates.com.

Visit the APS Regional Societies page for more information.

In the News

Make Sure You’re Getting Your Pain News from APS
SmartBrief

In previous issues of APS e-news, you have been able to rely on In the News for links to articles related to the field of pain sourced from various media. APS recently launched its inaugural issue of APS SmartBrief, a free digital digest of easy-to-read summaries specifically designed to bring you the most important and timely news stories on pain research, science, treatment, policy, and trends.

APS SmartBrief is available to you with the option to share and forward to your colleagues. We hope you find this new member benefit valuable and subscribe today.

Call for Submissions

Do you have a topic that is relevant to APS members? Is there a member who is doing work that APS should spotlight? Is there a funding opportunity APS members need to know about? Please submit stories, events, and more to enews@americanpainsociety.org for consideration.